Podcast 54: “FOUR FOUR EIGHT” by Emergency Stairs

Duration: 41 min

As part of ArtsEquator’s Critics Reading Group programme, we got together three arts writers – Corrie Tan, Jocelyn Chng and Loo Zihan – to discuss FOUR FOUR EIGHT by Emergency Stairs. Corrie, Jocelyn and Zihan’s conversation sets the work within the context of Liu Xiaoyi’s experimental oeuvre, and reveals their personal, unique encounters with FOUR FOUR EIGHT, reflecting on what happens when a performance calls its audience to solitude, introspection, and intimacy.

FOUR FOUR EIGHT by Emergency Stairs took place at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay as part of the Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts 华艺节 2019 from 19 – 23 February 2019, with each performance spanning a duration of about five and a half hours each day from 6pm – 11.30pm.

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Podcast produced by Rawspark Group.

Production Photography (courtesy of Esplanade Theatres on the Bay; photography by Crispian Chan)

Podcast Guest Corrie Tan is ArtsEquator’s resident critic and contributing editor, as well as a doctoral student in Theatre Studies on the joint PhD programme between the National University of Singapore and King’s College London.

Podcast Guest Jocelyn Chng is a freelance educator, practitioner and writer in dance and theatre, and has written for various platforms since 2013, including The Flying Inkpot and Centre 42. She holds a double Masters in Theatre Studies/Research, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Dance Teaching). At the heart of her practice, both teaching and personal, lies a curiosity about personal and cultural histories; writing about performance allows her to engage with this curiosity. She sees performance criticism as crucial to the development of the performance landscape in Singapore, and a valuable opportunity to contribute to ongoing discussions about performance and society. Her reviews for the Centre 42’s Citizen Reviewers programme can be found here.

Podcast Guest Loo Zihan is an artist working at the intersection of critical theory, performance, and the moving-image. His work emphasises the malleability of memory through various representational strategies. He was awarded the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council of Singapore in 2015.

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About the author(s)

Corrie Tan

Corrie Tan 陳霖靈 is an arts practitioner and researcher from Singapore. She is interested in and works at the intersection of care ethics, collaborative performance practices, and new articulations of arts criticism and writing in Southeast Asia. Her roles shapeshift depending on the context, but she is often an archivist, facilitator and companion to the artists and projects she works with and on. Corrie is completing her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies on the joint degree programme between King’s College London and the National University of Singapore on a President’s Graduate Fellowship. She is associate editor and resident critic with ArtsEquator, assistant editor with independent academic collective AcademiaSG, and is serving on the Future Advisory Board (FAB) of Performance Studies international (PSi). www.corrie-tan.com